When I worked in Chicago for a few years, visiting schools and observing teachers, I got to see a tremendous range of talent and dedication in all kinds of classrooms. The methods teachers used often varied dramatically, and some were clearly better than others. But none of the methods turned out to be remotely as important as an individual teacher’s commitment to succeeding with whatever method was at hand. I decided then that even though I was a big believer in a few specific approaches, it would be madness to force teachers who were good at teaching with methods I didn’t like to adopt my favorite alternatives.

 
With few exceptions, the magic that the best teachers had in the classroom dimmed when they were handed a new approach that they didn’t believe in. It’s almost like walking up to someone hammering nails into a fence with a too-small hammer and saying, hey, try this one, it’s a lot better for what you’re trying to do. Maybe that hammer had been a gift; maybe it was a symbol of a special person, or a special job well done in the past.

 
It’s true that a good worker with a lousy tool should do even better when given a great tool. But if that lousy tool means something special, if the worker is invested in making that tool work wonderfully well, there’s not much upside in swapping it out for another.

 
I still have the plain, stained, wood-handled hammer that my father used around the house when I was a kid. As hammers go, I’m sure it’s far from state-of-the-art, but if you try to take it away from me, I’ll lose a lot of the joy that I get banging nails when they need to be banged.

 
One comment in particular from a teacher back in my Chicago days pulled me out of my foolish notion that better techniques would make the decisive difference in many classrooms. A fantastic young teacher had been leading literature discussions, and leading them well. But there were a couple of tried-and-true methods I was there to push, and I pushed them. In my mind, this brilliant teacher plus the great methods would combine for a huge benefit to the students.

 
At the end of the day the teacher just took my breath away – made me ashamed – with this comment: “Doing it your way, I began to see myself differently. I saw my work differently. I lost that sense that I was working with the kids, me and them, and this other thing, this ‘right way to teach,’ just got in between us.”

 
It was the first time, she said, that she thought that maybe teaching was not the right long-term career for her. And of course, that was exactly the opposite of what I was trying to achieve. I had to adopt a new approach. I had to focus more on the joy the great teacher brings to the classroom, and start there: cherish it, nurse it, celebrate it. Avoid the deadly notion that “I’m here to show you a better way.”